Fredd

That's apparently an archaic concept.

DIFIN

another is "ignorance of the law is no excuse"

except TSA wont tell us what the laws are

Mikey likes it

Alas that's not how civil forfeiture works. The racket is that the po-po, the DA and/or the federal agenc(ies) involved get to keep most or all of what is forfeited.

InkUnderNails

They also cut the local police and sheriff departments a bit of the take to buy their acquiescence.

We Will Never Forget

You don't seem to be understanding the concept. It's illegal bring in currency or monetary instruments in excess of $10,000 without declaring them. The currency is an instrument of the crime and is seized as such. The forfeiture proceedings are seperate and if you are claiming that there was no criminal intent, you need to show the legitimacy of the currency. The currency can still be forfeited even if legitimate, but you stand a much better chance if you can show the origin.

We Will Never Forget

Most of the states they referred to are in drug corridors, so it's more likely they were legitimate. The concept of forfeiture is to remove the reward for criminal behavior. Generally, anything subject to forfeiture can be tied to the predicate crime, though some states allow for the forfeiture of vehicles if used during a drug offense. Asset sharing is very popular and is a big incentive to seize items when possible, but I doubt it's being done as recklessly as the article seems to indicate.

Loren Pechtel

Denying what's going on doesn't make it go away.

Innocent until proven guilty no longer applies to drug offenses.

We Will Never Forget

From my experience, that's not true at all.

Ari

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-05-05/j...ty?_s=PM:CRIME

(The article is 3 pages long, make sure to go through all three pages).

Seems pretty reckless to me. I'll find a policy paper on this and link to it when I get a chance; it is a nationwide epidemic.

We Will Never Forget

This sounds like a podunk city PD is being used to indict the whole system. For the record U.S. 59 is a huge drug/currency corridor, so departments along those areas tend to be heavy handed. The loss of the currency for Mr. Daniels is pretty common for smugglers. They disavow ownership of the currency and it's technically surrendered. So what the attorney is alledging is most likely correct, they take the currency and don't return it. BUT, it's not because it has been forfeited, it's because the legal owner can not be identified. The "systematic fleecing" could be exactly that, or the fact that the jurisdiction is in a high intesity drug trafficking area. I really don't know that specific area. As for the minorities being targeted disproportionately, they are probably the ones being caught with the currency. Bottom line, it's hard to tell what really happened because the events can be spun to fit the author's claim.

janetdoe

The fact that it's allowed to happen in a single case is an indictment of the whole system. However, it's very clear that this is not just one town, or one state. It is pervasive.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...y_and_run.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...orfeiture.html
http://www.npr.org/series/91856663/d...nd-forfeitures
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/2...feiture-racket

Ari

No, there are lots of cities all over the country doing the same thing. This is but one. I'll find some others since you seem skeptical.

Is that supposed to be some sort of justification-- that they tend to be 'heavy handed' with innocent drivers because there are a lot of guilty ones, too?

I don't think you are read the article very carefully; the claim is that they are threatened with criminal charges if they don't sign away the money for good ("if you don't sign this, we'll arrest you for a felony, but if you do sign this, we'll let you go"). In one case-- and this is documented on paper in the agreement signed-- the threat was to turn the children over to child services if the money was not given up. It is hard to imagine that a cop or DA would let suspected felons walk as long as the loot is given up, so if the allegations of the threats are true, it is likely that there was never any valid basis for a felony charge in the first place (which would make the threat even more unlawful).

The allegation is that minorities are being stopped and harassed more frequently than whites-- and that whites are not searched for currency while minorities are. You only find currency on the ones you stop and search.

So that's the allegation based on raw stats from the stops themselves (the cops have some sort of reporting process that tracks the races of people stopped).

Also of note is that Daniels was stopped for going 37mph in a 35mph zone; a lot of white folks do that too, I'm sure.

I appreciate the "the author can spin it the way he wants" argument (which frequently is a very valid point), but it fails in this case:

• The County has settled numerous lawsuits and faces many others which are open. (Settlements are not admissions, but government settlements in constitutional rights cases are more signifigant indicators of wrongdoing than settlements in other cases because in these types of cases the loser often pays both sides' legal fees. So "saving the costs of litigation" is less of an excuse for settling than in suits against private actors, especially when the settlement is made early in the case before dispositive motions are filed and the court denys summary judgment).
• Both Investigator Green and DA Russell took the 5th in response to all questions during lawsuit depositions other than their names. This is their right, but you can only take the 5th in a civil case deposition if what you are going to say could possibly incriminate you (in a criminal sense, of course). The Judge ruled that it is permissible to draw a negative inference from the taking of the 5th in this case.
• The Texas Attorney General has been investigating for some time; he ruled that DA Lynda Russell can't use the forfeiture funds for her legal defense (she is personally liable for some of her conduct). It is really chutzpah for her to ask to use the forfeiture funds for this purpose.
• The FBI opened a criminal investigation in November of last year (the DOJ's civil investigation has been going on for some time now).
• Barry Cooper of Kopbusters (I don't condone their activities or vouch for him, but he did say this) worked with Barry Washington and claims that Washington is the one who taught him how to get a dog to give a false alert when Cooper was a cop and they worked together on the drug interdiction task force.
• The 5th Circuit just rejected interlocutory appeal of a District Court's certification of a class for injunctive relief.
• It is not lawful under the Texas forfeiture laws (read them) to threaten to take someone's children away in order to get forfeiture documents signed, but it is documented that Russell did just that.
• More, but I don't want to dig it up now.

Any one of the above on its own would not mean much (or anything), but all of them put together paint a very different picture. We can agree or disagree on seizures nationwide (I will attempt to locate the policy paper I'm thinking about), but this is not one author spinning an article, but reporting the facts (do you still think it is?). These are only allegations, and they may or not be proven true, but please at least admit that this situation looks fishy and it isn't CNN's doing.

Feel free to google to check the facts I cited above (you will find much more); I didn't link to sources in this post due to feeling lazy. Sorry.

-----------------------------

I am the one in this thread who brought to light the meth conviction of the driver in the border case that started this thread. I even went so far as to say it was probably drug money given the previous conviction, so I don't think I can be dismissed as being criminal sympathizer.

Loren Pechtel

The thing is even if you do contest it's a major problem to actually get it back.

We had a case locally--a charter jet. It looks like it was chartered by a few bad guys but that's not the fault of the operator. It was *NOT* used for smuggling.

Last I heard he was still fighting to get his jet back years later.

Ari

And most states, unlike the federal government, do not reimburse for legal fees expended in the forfeiture proceedings when the property is returned.

Innocent people who have legitimate cash seized might have to spend nearly as much to get it back. One such innocent person had ~$3,600 in cash seized and ended up getting it back; after legal fees, she was left with about $500.

We Will Never Forget

I'll comment more later, but in the Smelley case, I can see where the suspicion lies.
1. Detroit is a well-documented source city for illicit currency.
2. Driving a rental car without a license. How would he rent a car without a license or was it done by a third party, which is very common for smugglers?
3. Smelley denied having a large amount of currency.
4. Smelley claimed to be traveling to purchase a car at 3 AM. That in itself may not be suspicious, but I would assume there were follow up questions attempting verify this story.
5. Previous drug arrest.

I would say all this in combination would seem pretty suspicious. I think the true answer lies in the answers he gave the officer.